Polish Prime Minister Shoots Down Gazprom’s New Pipeline Idea

This Jan. 7, 2009, file photo shows a natural gas pumping station for gas imported from Russia, in Rebelszczyzna, near Warsaw

WARSAW–Poland looks unfavorably at pipeline projects proposed by OAO Gazprom that circumvent Ukraine and use natural gas as a political tool, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Friday.

Earlier Friday, Gazprom said it had signed a preliminary agreement with Poland-based Europol Gaz SA on what it called the Yamal-Europe-2 pipeline to Slovakia and Hungary, which could have the capacity to deliver at least 15 billion cubic meters of gas a year.

Mr. Tusk said he was unaware of the memorandum of understanding with Europol Gaz, which owns the Yamal-Europe pipeline section that runs through Poland, to potentially build a new pipe via Polish territory.

Russia and Ukraine have been in an on-and-off dispute over the price and delivery of gas to and through Ukraine, and Gazprom is pushing ahead with numerous other pipeline projects to reduce its dependence on its neighbor as a transit country.

“Poland won’t participate in these political contexts,” Mr. Tusk said. “For us, gas isn’t a tool to conduct politics and we very much want, in agreement with European Union laws, to keep gas issues free of politics.”

Gazprom holds a 48% stake in Europol Gaz, with PGNiG SA holding the other 48% directly. A minority 4% stake is held by Gas-Trading SA, which says on its website its largest shareholder is PGNiG.

Remarks by Mr. Tusk itself suggest the memorandum of understanding went against the wishes of the Polish state.

“It’s not a Polish company,” Mr. Tusk said of Europol Gaz when asked about the logic of the agreement.

PGNiG’s Chief Executive Grazyna Piotrowska-Oliwa said Gazprom was blowing the memorandum out of proportion, and that the document came with no investment pledge. She echoed a statement from Europol Gaz, which said the document “doesn’t include a decision to build the pipeline and isn’t a legally binding agreement or pledge to conclude any agreements or contracts.”

Poland’s treasury minister, Mikolaj Budzanowski, earlier this week said decisions on new gas pipelines from the east would be made by the Polish government and only a Polish state-owned company would be accepted as the builder. The prime minister Friday endorsed that statement.

The Polish stance, put forward by Mr. Budzanowski, was a response to “Russian expectations or imaginings that running a pipeline through Poland that would circumvent Ukraine is just something to be hammered out in negotiations,” Mr. Tusk added.

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